Stop the Border Wall

la frontera

Our people and our culture were here long before the militarization of the border

Trump's proposed BORDER WALL IS WRONG

President-elect Donald Trump's campaign promise to build a massive border wall across the U.S.-Mexico border is misguided, xenophobic, technically infeasible, and will deterioriate the country's relationship with Mexico.

Many Mexican Americans and other Latin Americans, regardless of their citizenship or legal status, proudly call the United States home. As many other Americans who have immigrated here have done, many Hispanic immigrant families also maintain, honor, and hold in high respect their home country and their culture. They raise their families here, work hard, contribute positively to American society and its economy in many ways, and fight to give their children a better future.

"Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures." - Cesar Chavez

Historically, America has always been a nation of immigrants. But Trump's proposed border wall sends a clear signal to Mexican Americans and Latin Americans, regardless of their legal status: "You're not wanted here." Trump does not realize that the frontera is Nuestra Tierra.

For many Mexican Americans, the modern American Southwest is sacred because it also represents Aztlán, the legendary ancestral home of the Aztec peoples, lands that were annexed by the United States as a result of the Mexican–American War. And before the United States, the American Southwest was home to many of our collective ancestors, including countless Native American Tribes and the subsequent Spanish settlers.

To build a border wall to divide these two great nations is to destroy the cultural heritage that the land represents to its modern day inhabitants. Nuestra Tierra strongly believes that to preserve our frontera culture, and to move forward as a nation, the border wall must not be built.

Read the letter we drafted and sent to New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.